Celebrity Divorce Payouts: 1. Rupert and Anna Murdoch $1.7 billion: Yowza, Elin Nordegren is not quite the queen of divorce settlements: Anna Murdoch Mann, newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch's ex-wife, received $1.7 billion -- $110 million in cash -- from the couple's infamous 1999 split, in what is called the "most expensive" divorce settlement in history. Although at first they broke up amicably after 30 years together, Mann (who has since remarried) was determined to give Murdoch's older children, three of whom were hers, the right to approve any change in the family trust that controls News Corp., ensuring that they could not be pushed aside for any new children. Murdoch remarried company employee Wendi Deng just 17 days after the divorce was finalized and has since had two more children. Mann said her ex-husband "behaved badly" in the divorce, and two years after it was finalized, she said she felt as though she was "coming out of a state of mental illness."
2. Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren $750 million: Rumor has it Elin Nordegren originally only sought $500 million, thinking it was half of Tiger Woods' estimated $1 billion fortune, but then her lawyers discovered he was worth more. As part of their divorce settlement, Nordegren must remain silent about his numerous alleged affairs, since a friend told London's The Sun tabloid that Tiger's main fear was "her telling her story after he's rebuilt his reputation, sending him back to the gutter." Custody of the couple's 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son was also in dispute -- Nordegren wanted to have the children spend part of the year in Sweden, and Woods wanted to make sure he had a say in how they're raised. Nordegren ended up with sole legal custody, and the pair will share physical custody. But Nordegren might have the last laugh on this one: Woods cannot bring any of his girlfriends home until they're married. Well, that ought to stop him from having so many affairs. Perhaps.
3. Michael and Juanita Jordan $168 million: Michael and Juanita Jordan were married in Las Vegas in 1989, after he had spent only five years in the NBA, and a year later they signed a "post-nuptial" agreement that gave her access to half his fortune. He possibly did not know what he was signing away, since the $168 million she won in their 2007 divorce was only one-third of his net worth. By the time the ink dried on the settlement, Jordan said he wanted to get on with his life, and his wife had already become involved with a banker 20 years younger.
4. Neil Diamond and Marcia Murphey $150 million: It takes a pretty generous man to say his ex-wife is "worth every penny" after giving her $150 million -- or half his fortune -- in a divorce, but that's exactly what Diamond claims. The pair married in 1969, long before his big hits started coming, and split in 1994, meaning she was rewarded an estimated $5.5 million for each year the two were together. The cause for the split was "irreconcilable differences"; could that be why good times can seem so blue?
5. Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving $100 million: Amy Irving's post-divorce bounty, $100 million, awarded in 1989, still ranks up there as one of the most expensive celebrity divorces. Although she and Steven Spielberg signed a prenuptial agreement -- they married in 1985, after huge hits like Jaws and E.T. -- Irving successfully had it nullified, as it was written on a napkin and without legal representation. The couple had one son, Max Samuel, and Spielberg has said he wanted to stay on good terms with Irving for his son's sake, given the trauma of his own parents' divorce. Post-split, both Spielberg and Irving have remarried: Spielberg married actress Kate Capshaw, and the couple had five children together, and Irving first married Brazilian director Bruno Barreto and then, after their divorce in 2005, she wed documentary filmmaker Kenneth Bowser.
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